Prominent baritone from Matanzas dies
Gloria Machado León 9 octubre, 2017
At dawn on October 9th died the outstanding baritone Matancero Gustavo Alvarez, at 74 years of age, as a result of cardiovascular disease.
Matanzas and Cuban culture loses an outstanding personality of art, founder of the national lyric theater and Matanzas, a renowned voice in traviattas, operas and zarzuelas, which he also played for 20 years in the lyric of Colombia.
Its slender artistic stature and so much vocal qualities made of Gustavo Alvarez, an indispensable figure in the national and international scene. Thus his eloquent trajectory in the tables shows his participation in 1991 by 28 cities of Italy with the International Company of Operetas Cuba-Italy, directed by Carlo Rivolta.
Radio 26 sends its condolences to family and friends and offers readers a work recently published by journalist Dunielys Díaz entitled:
Gustavo Álvarez: a man with a storm voice
He said he will not sing again. The baritone Gustavo Alvarez knew that it was the last night on the stage and the voice did not shake him even in that final minute in which a man decides the end. “I will not sing again.”
Since then he has tried to follow the habits of age, wake up late in the morning, take care of the grandchildren, visit his daughter from time to time and lie on the bed to watch old videos in which he sings, videos that he almost does not have to whom to show. Sometimes a meager homage arrives in the ungrateful city that remembers so little to the only men and women who until today have given Matanzas their Lyric Theater.
But it is too much rest in the throat of Gustavo. When someone decides one last time it is because they already have enough stories riding inside.
*****
The day that Benny Moré passed away, right next to the clinic, Gustavo Alvarez was preparing to debut in the choir of the National Opera. Although that being a lyric singer seems so elitist and European, many newspapers and perfumes would have to sell the boy from Alacranes to get there.
“Actually the first time I sang in public, in addition to the Masses of the Church, was in the delivery of a Fab House to a lady of Union of Kings. One day I went to Havana to try my luck, I remember living in the house of some guys in Marianao and one of the neighbors of the building worked as a utility in CMQ. The thing was that I was singing in the bathroom and he listened to me:
-Hey! And who sings who is? He asked my aunt.
“He’s my nephew of Union of Kings who is 14 years old.
“And why do not you tell him to come to the Jose Antonio contest?”
For these thrones I came to the Supreme Court of Art. “
Nervous as any guajiro in the capital, even more on television, Gustavo would rehearse for three long weeks As you leave, Fernando Albuerne with Isolina Carrillo on piano. However, when the big day arrived ….
“I forgot the song completely. I did not know what to say. But I said, ‘I like you, you can not pass this penalty’ and I quickly answered that I would sing Júrame. They asked me in what tone and I who did not understand any of that, I said: ‘In which Manolo Álvarez Mena sings it. “
At the age of 14 he would win the contest in the Supreme Court of Art in his second edition, so he could receive classes with the teacher Zoila Gálvez. By that time he had returned to Alacranes, sold newspapers all week and so paid for the trips to the capital.
When he thought that he would not pass the stage of the town, his mother cut from the newspaper a call to enter the choir of the National Opera and sneaked the request. Although he appeared to the audition without scores, his voice of dry storm had to impress because Gustavo Álvarez belonged to the National Opera during ten years, from the day of its foundation.
*****
So many trips and so much Gypsy walking ended up tiring him body and spirit, had decided to return when invited to be part of what he believes, has been one of the most honorable events of his life.
“At the wake of Gonzalo Roig, Daniel Marcos proposes to come to Matanzas to found a Lyric Theater Group. Here there were several soloists, but Teatro Lírico, which is said Teatro Lírico no. I told him that I would think about it and some time later I took the papers of my discharge in the suitcases for Matanzas.
“We were fourteen singers among sopranos, tenors and me the only baritone. The choir was composed of workers of the Rayonera, teachers …, we were helped by the dancers of the Folkloric and the musicians of the Symphony Orchestra, which later led Alberto García. The tenor Armando Soler (Cholito) was passing through Radio 26 and was in charge of the general direction of the first staging at the request of Daniel Marcos, who would deal with artistic direction. With the zarzuela Cecilia Valdés, in the Sauto Theater, the first Lyrical Theater Group of this city was born in Matanzas in 1970. “
Daniel Marcos, Magdalena Fernández, Alba de Zayas, Hilda del Castillo, Luisa Alicia Cabrera, Ada Díaz, Gladys Fraga, Joaquín Moré, Alberto Dávalos, Alfonso Lloréns, Esteban Taylor … and Gustavo Álvarez, among others, of the Theater Group Lírico Matancero.
Beyond the headaches to make productions less expensive, the repertoire included Cecilia Valdés, Rosa, la China, Havana that returns, El Cafetal, Soledad, María la O, many of them with orchestral arrangements by Rodrigo himself Prats, who was staying at the Hotel Velasco during those days and did not charge a penny for the contribution.
“This what I’m going to tell you is not my words. Rodrigo Prats publicly said that the best Cuban lyric was the matancero, although in the capital had better voices. That was also repeated by Blanca Becerra, the first Cecilia of 1932, when she came to witness our function almost 90 years in the Sauto. Most of the groupings were European pieces and our group was characterized by revitalizing the Cuban opera house.
“We were lucky to have Néstor González as his stage designer, Néstor González who slept in a litter in the dressing rooms of Teatro Sauto and was able to create planets on stage. During the presentation of Cecilia Valdés at the Great theater of Habana Federico García Lorca, when the curtains were opened in the third act came a grinding mill, the public stood up and began to applaud, shouted: ‘this is theater, it seems a lie that the matanceros come to teach us what is theater. Never before had I seen applaud the scenery in this way. “
Gustavo breathes, he knows that he has been more excited than the pendulum of a sick heart can tolerate, although the 74 years still do not bend the body to the “Creole of the Yumurí”.
*****
In every story there is always something we do not want to tell and it goes too far to shut up now. The disappearance of the Lyric Theater in Matanzas is the pain we wrap in a cloth of silence and buried for others to discover, the guilty omitted from those who can not be judged yet.
“The Provincial Directorate of Culture wanted to end the Lyric Theater and did it. In the fire of Lincoln cinema, which was our headquarters in those years, would also burn part of our stage and music. After Daniel Marcos, the soul of the group was Alberto Dávalos, I knew that when he left it would be over and everything was indeed. They began to close the doors, to trip Dávalos. That was our end, in 1987 the group Lírico matancero disintegrated and each took a different path. “
But the lyric did not really disintegrate, buried it alive and the earth is still removed. Gustavo Alvarez refused to be a concert performer, his whole life had done nothing more than sing traviattas, zarzuelas, so he went to Colombia and stayed there for twenty years in the Compañía de Teatro Lírico de Bogota. He returned and at the Sauto Theater decided that the time had come, he would never sing again.
“I’m afraid to make a paper, I’m not the same. Esther Borja once told me that in the midst of a concert she heard a voice that said in her ear: ‘the time came’ and told everyone to ask for the songs they wanted because after that day they did not sing anymore. I did not hear any voice, but I also noticed the end. I confess that I take some licenses. They recently invited me to sing and I did not listen so badly, I do not know, I say. “
The baritone Gustavo Alvarez is one of the living members of the Teatro Lírico Matancero Group, he has so much to say, so many stories boiling, that even silent his voice is a sea arm breaking on his lips, a dry storm coming out of man’s diaphragm who does not sing again. He knows why.
Original text on Oct 9th, 2017
